[Python-Dev] [Python-3000] the release gods are angry at python

[Jeffrey Yasskin]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Bill Janssen <janssen at parc.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 3:31 AM,  <skip at pobox.com> wrote:
>  > >
>  > >     Neal> Anything that connects to a remote host is definitely flaky.
>  > >
>  > >  Would it maybe help to set up a dedicated host (or virtual host) to serve as
>  > >  the sole target of all network tests?
>  >
>  > It would help, but not fix the problem.  There will still be transient
>  > network issues that come up.
>
>  We really need to be able to wrap a timeout around any individual
>  test, perhaps throwing a TimeoutException if the timeout is reached,
>  and have the ability to regard a TimeoutException as not being a
>  "failure".

Something like:

@contextmanager
def timeout(max_time):
    def RaiseTimeout(signal, frame):
        raise TimeoutException
    # Why don't we have a context manager for the next line?
    old_alarm = signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, RaiseTimeout)
    try:
        signal.alarm(max_time)
        try:
            yield
        finally:
            signal.alarm(0)
    finally:
        signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, old_alarm)

with appropriate fallbacks for Windows. I may not be poking at
test_support for a bit, so anyone else is welcome to check that in, or
a fixed version of it, whenever they're fixing a timing-out test.

Someone else will have to implement the support in regrtest, although
I wouldn't mind having it treat a timeout as a failure, as long as
it's easier to diagnose than the SIGKILL it currently uses for
timeouts.

-- 
Namasté,
Jeffrey Yasskin